Class Ceiling--Ehrenreich

[Peter K.]

Yoshie, selectively reading or else having a bad day:
>Now, housework.  Inexplicably, Ehrenreich still seems trapped in the idea
>that housework is woman's work, and that explains the tenor of her
>argument.  Even when both affluent man and woman benefit from the
>outsourcing of housework, guilt of doing so somehow falls upon woman.
>Examples she uses make that clear: e.g., "Recall that in 1993 Zoe Baird
>paid her undocumented household workers about $5 an hour out of her
>earnings of $507,000 a year."  Yes, Zoe Baird needs to be criticized, but
>what of her husband?  Or was she single???

This is reaching. If you read the article carefully, she writes about men
also.
Show me the line where she says guilt falls exclusively upon the woman.


>Comparable male politicos would
>not have come under the same moral attack from the media, so there is a
>gendering of moralization of housework, but Ehrenreich never discusses the
>gendering of moralism about housework in her articles in _Harper's_ & _In
>These Times_; in fact, her criticism of affluent feminists depends upon
>gendered work ethics.  So, in this sense, I agree with Chuck Grimes that
>Ehrenreich is the Martha Stewart of progressive politics, for Ehrenreich
>thinks that housework is a _moral_ issue _for women_, a spiritually
>uplifting testimony to women's industriousness .

Did you skip the part about how much of what we do by way of consumption
would be morally equivalent to hiring a maid? Even if your points were true
I don't see how this would make her "the Martha Stewart of progressive
politics."

Peter